In the wake of the Path address book debacle and the recent FTC report on Mobile Apps for Kids, more app users, particularly parents of kids that use apps, are concerned about what information apps may be collecting and just how it is being used. As parents we completely understand those concerns and we’re crafting an official privacy policy.

In the meantime I wanted to talk about our approach to privacy in Super Speller. First, we absolutely do not collect or transmit any personally identifiable information in our app. Our app does gather a minimal amount of anonymous information that can be used to improve the user experience. However, none of that information can be used to identify or locate the individual using our software in any way. In other words if Super Speller crashes, it lets us know so we can fix the problem. That’s it. We don’t like it when the software we use has a problem and we especially don’t like it when our software has a problem. This helps us identify and fix problems as quickly as possible.

As a parent there are a couple of other items you may want to be aware of in our app. First, we include a button that allows you to send us a support email. In our experience it can be very frustrating when you have a concern and can’t figure out where to direct it. It hasn’t happened yet, but if it is obvious that an email was sent by a child it will be deleted. We also provide a link to our web site from within in our app so you can read things like this fine blog post or learn more about us and our apps.

Lastly, our app allows you to share tests with other Super Speller users via email. Super Speller does not include any personally identifiable information in these tests, though it doesn’t prevent you from adding such information in the title of the test, or your recorded audio. You should take care to insure that you know and trust the recipient of any shared test. Test results often include the name of the student taking a test, but neither the student name nor test results are included when sharing a test with others.

That’s it. There is no advertising, no social network integration, no login information, or in app purchasing in our app. We believe the things we have included are reasonable and offer very little risk of exposing you or your child’s personal information.

We do our best to make our app a safe environment, but you may also want to look into restricting access to particular apps or features by enabling parental controls on your iPad or iPhone. This article explaining how to enable parental controls is available from Apple.

If you have any further questions or feedback for us regarding privacy we would love to hear from you.

Just a quick post to announce the release of Super Speller v2.0.1 this evening. Mostly cosmetic changes in this one. Some of our labels didn’t line up perfectly when using the whiteboard theme and we couldn’t have that! 🙂 We also fixed a crash that could occur when dismissing an alert.

We’re already working on the next release and it’s moving along nicely. Can’t wait to show everyone what we’re adding next!

This evening we are thrilled to discover that Apple has selected Super Speller as a New & Noteworthy app in the Education category on the App Store. I think every developer hopes, but does necessarily expect to be selected for that distinction. We love our little app and are very proud of of it. But we also understand that, because it’s our baby, it can be easy to think too highly of our work and overlook its faults. And so, we are so very honored that Apple has recognized Super Speller this way. No software is perfect, but I think this lets us know that we’re on the right track.

Finally, we wanted to take a moment to thank you all for your feedback and encouragement. It’s made all the difference. Thank you so much!!

We’re really excited to announce the release of Super Speller 2 today!

Version 2 adds several big features.

First up are word search puzzles. Word search puzzles offer yet another way to study spelling without having it feel like study. Every word search puzzle is generated randomly from your spelling words insuring nearly endless combinations of puzzles. This is the first of several planned additions to the Study Page.

Next is the new whiteboard theme. While we think the chalkboard theme is great, some users had requested the addition of a font that more closely matches handwriting as it is taught to students. We went one better and created a whole new theme called whiteboard which uses a clearer font, similar to the Zaner-Bloser handwriting style.

Lastly we added a built in dictionary. Now while studying your words you’ll be able to access the dictionary included with iOS 5 which provides a pronunciation key, usage examples, and information on word origins. Excellent for general study and those preparing for a spelling bee.

We’ve also included several minor bug fixes and tweaks in this release.

For additional information on the new features in Super Speller 2 visit the Super Speller page, or download it from the App Store.

Super Speller v1.2 was released today. v1.2 adds the option to ignore capitalization when grading a spelling test.

On the surface, this seems a minor update, but we really put some thought into this feature. You see, this had been mentioned even before the Super Speller was originally released, but we were hesitant to add it for a couple of reasons. First, we love apps that are simple and easy to use, and we didn’t want to clutter things up with a bunch of options unless we were absolutely certain there was a real need. This seems especially true with apps written for kids. There was no consensus on whether the option to ignore capitalization was truly necessary. In addition, when our son’s spelling tests are graded, points are taken off for incorrect capitalization. We certainly don’t want to give the impression that capitalization doesn’t matter. So we shipped without it.

On the flip side, since release we’ve had additional requests for the option to ignore capitalization. And at least one review that was critical of this missing feature. We also imagined that with younger students just learning to spell, that correct capitalization probably isn’t quite as important. These things were enough to convince us that the need for the option was real.

This isn’t to say that we require our users to build a case providing justification for their favorite feature. Rather we want to make sure that the things we add make sense and that we’re not just adding junk so we can have the most bullet points in our app description.